Malice

Once you get into the story, there's no way out. Everyone's heard the rumors. If you gather the right things and say the right words, you'll be taken to Malice, a world that exists inside a horrifying comic book. It's a world that few kids know about ... and even fewer survive. Seth and Kady think it's all a silly myth. But then their friend, Luke, disappears and suddenly the rumors don't seem silly after all. Malice is real. Malice is deadly. And Seth and Kady are about to be trapped inside it.

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For ages 9-12. Malice is a world that exists inside a mysterious comic book in which children become trapped. You probably think it’s all a silly myth, but wait till your friends start disappearing one by one…

This book is Amazing. I really like the story line of this book. Cant wait to read Havoc!

FindingJane
Aug 03, 2015

In the age-old tradition of children running away from home to seek excitement, danger or adventure comes “Malice”. The titular comic is whispered about in the comic geek world and children only learn about it through rumor, whispers and online gossip. Some go on a dare. Others, out of curiosity. And some, like Seth, go out of boredom.

While the initial terror of the world of Malice is exciting enough, what happens outside of its comic book frames is just as compelling. The figures twining through the lives of the children—Mr. Scratch, Miss Benjamin, Tall Jake and very knowing cats—are the stuff of nightmares and dreams. We can’t help but wonder at their relationships to each other and to the comic book world of Malice.

Malice is an odd, disjointed place and none of the pieces of it seem to come together. None of it really makes sense. Some places are populated by scared, dead-eyed children who seem to have surrendered to the pervading terror of their surroundings. Other spots are oddly deserted but filled with empty machinery. Others feature various live things too strange to be animals but distinctly unhuman. The entire place seems to have been created to trap children and steal their lives…but then you learn that it was a beautiful place once. But, without any real clue as to why or how these changes occurred, the world of Malice remains frustratingly opaque.

The characters of the three main children are capably set, with Kady being the timid yet well prepared one, Justin the anti-social loner and product of an abused childhood and Seth the adrenaline junky. Of all these three, Seth was the one that irked me most.

Granted, he has his good qualities. He’s a solid friend. He’s daring, fearless and bold in the face of danger. However, in some ways he’s your typical adolescent. He’s not escaping from a childhood of beatings, torment and social ostracism like poor Justin. He’s just worried about winding up a middle-class drone subjected to the ordinary mundane life as the rest of the world. In his chutzpah, he labels people as Dead and Alive. Dead people are like his parents, content to live their life in mediocrity, working, eating and sleeping, without a shred of curiosity or interest in the wider world.

Seth’s hidden disdain of them and his fear of becoming like them read as base ingratitude, especially when we compare his home life with that of Justin. Seth’s life is comfortable. He has loving parents who love him. He’s well provided for, kept clean and well fed. He has everything he could need and all he could want. Yet he throws that away and gives up a chance to escape because he wants to know more about the various habitats of Malice. He seems really foolish but presumably his intrepid daring will pay off in the sequel.

The book’s layout is superb, an artful combination of prose and comic book panels, with stark black-and-white illustrations showing the cackling eerie playland into which the children fall. They provide perfect setups and segues from and into the prose. Combined with the bas-relief cover featuring stand-out letters and the figure of Tall Jake itself, this novel reminds the reader why interest in the printed word still lingers even as the popularity of e-books continues to proceed at full tilt.

The world is menacing. The mythology is compelling. Unfortunately, the execution leaves something to be desired. Wooding leads readers around by the nose too much. The comic pages are poorly drawn, even though they should be a fine complement to the story. Doesn't quite live up to the promise of the ideas.